Erika Thompson is the founder and owner of Texas Beeworks. As a child, she was fascinated with insects and spent her nights and weekends collecting every bug she could find. She took a beekeeping class in 2011 and started her first hive soon after. As her adoration and admiration for honeybees grew, so did the number of hives in her backyard. She started Texas Beeworks in 2014 while working another job full-time, and after years of doing it on the side, quit her office job in 2019 to become a full-time beekeeper. Her work with honeybees and her advocacy efforts to protect pollinators has been featured worldwide through a variety of media outlets and social media. You can follow her beekeeping adventures on Instagram @texasbeeworks.

In general, I like to let the bees do their own thing. I listen to the bees and they tell me what they need when I go into a hive. And if I see something amiss, or if there’s a problem in the hive, I try to think about what can I give the bees to solve this problem on their own, versus what can I do to solve this problem? It’s up to the bees to do what they’re going to do naturally. And I just want them to be healthy and happy, so they have all the resources they need to live good lives.

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